The Beatles Appreciation Thread

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Name your favorite Beatles song or solo members work.

 

[Doug Melven]

I used to like the Beatles but I had 2 friends who loved the Beatles and they declared a Beatles weekend and they played every single song they had. Beatles all weekend long. Now they're just bugs.
the beatles yellow submarine - Google Search

 

[( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

I used to like the Beatles but I had 2 friends who loved the Beatles and they declared a Beatles weekend and they played every single song they had. Beatles all weekend long. Now they're just bugs.
the beatles yellow submarine - Google Search

Enough of the pre-hippy Beatles would be enough to turn anyone off from their music, period. I enjoy their stuff from Help up.

 

[dzheremi]

I'm the exact opposite. I feel I'm one of the minority who thinks the Beatles sorta started to lose the plot after going to India and/or getting more heavily into drugs. Give me anything they did in 1965-66 (when they started to abandon the pretty boy moptopery after Dylan told John Lennon that their songs had no message, but before they got so into drugs that they thought stuff like "Revolution #9" was a good idea) over hokey filler like "O-bla-di, O-bla-dah" or whatever any day.

Too much Paul McCartney tends to ruin things, though from what I can tell (not an expert) he did the best out of all of them, solo-wise. I'll listen to "Jet" by Wings (even though it's stupid, just like the songs he did with the Beatles that I like) a million times over before I listen to John Lennon screaming like a lunatic about his mother, or George Harrison ripping off the Chiffons to talk about some hippie Hindu stuff, or Ringo Starr...being Ringo Starr. (Ringo Starr is not a singer. He's clearly not meant to be one. Why did people let this happen?)

 

[Andrew Jeremiah]

Name your favorite Beatles song or solo members work.

That's difficult. I'd have to think about that one.

In the meantime...

Chicago Transit Authority

 

[TuxAme]

I really like their early stuff, from around the Ed Sullivan era, but I'm a huge fan of With a Little Help From My Friends and similar songs.

I really like their early and middle tracks more than anything else.

 

[Toro]

If you ask me the Beatles were the first boy band. To me they are so VERY highly overrated.

Id rather listen to the Rolling Stones (and I only like 2 of their songs: Paint It Black, Time Is On My Side. )

That said, the only song of the Beatles I like is due more to the nostalgia of the movie than the song itself.

 

[dzheremi]

"Twist and Shout" isn't even really a Beatles song. It was originally recorded in 1961 by the R&B group The Top Notes, and then was a hit for the Isley Brothers before the Beatles. The Beatles version really sounds like a cover of the Isley Borthers' version more than the original:

Original Top Notes version (1961)

Isley Brothers version (1962)

Beatles version (1963)

I'm partial to the Isley Brothers version over any others I've heard, including the Beatles'.

 

[Citanul]

If you ask me the Beatles were the first boy band. To me they are so VERY highly overrated.

They came together naturally, played instruments, and wrote their own songs, so they disqualifies them as being a boy band. If anything, the Monkees have a better claim to being the first boy band.

I think it can be difficult to assess the Beatles 50 years later. People do claim that they changed the face of rock music, but I suppose you'd need to take a good look at what was around before them to be able to make that call.

Also, their being so ubiquitous can make make them seem old hat. I recently picked up a compilation of The Kinks, who I hadn't heard much up to that point, and found them a lot more fresh and interesting than The Beatles precisely because I wasn't so familiar with them.

And to answer the OP, I'm not really sure. But off the top of my head, I'll go with While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

 

[Toro]

They came together naturally, played instruments, and wrote their own songs, so they disqualifies them as being a boy band. If anything, the Monkees have a better claim to being the first boy band.

I think it can be difficult to assess the Beatles 50 years later. People do claim that they changed the face of rock music, but I suppose you'd need to take a good look at what was around before them to be able to make that call.

Also, their being so ubiquitous can make make them seem old hat. I recently picked up a compilation of The Kinks, who I hadn't heard much up to that point, and found them a lot more fresh and interesting than The Beatles precisely because I wasn't so familiar with them.

And to answer the OP, I'm not really sure. But off the top of my head, I'll go with While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

Well music is subjective...and I dont believe one band can truly "change the face" alone, considering that music is bigger than just one band and is more of a group effort. One usually becomes "the face" much like Nirvana in the 90's there were many similar bands that helped to create a new genre but Nirvana is one of the ones credited as "the face".. some believe them being the face to be deserved... others not so much, so again, subjective... especially when you look at the fact that those also credited with changing "the face of rock" in the time of the Beatles such as Elvis had their own huge impact.

Why I see them as the first boy band is due to the fact that I seriously cant see girls/women "fainting" at their mere presence in reality not because of talent level. Seems more like a PR thing than an actual reality. I wasn't alive until the end of the 70's so all I have to go on is the footage I've seen of girls losing their minds and other media footage which I only ever take with a grain of salt in search of truth.

Were the Beatles devoid of talent? No, but given the decade, they had to have SOME level of talent to sell the image unlike today's bubble gum pop/rock autotune diva (regardless of gender) where there is a heavier value placed on "the look" than on ability. Musically they aren't my thing but that doesn't mean I put them on the same talent level as one of today's boy bands, I simply see them targeting the same style of audience that is why the comparison, nothing more.Doesn't mean the product then was of the same lousy quality as today. Id MUCH rather listen to endless hours of the Beatles than a single Justin Bieber song or whatever boy band thats out there today.

As I said, the one song they performed that I like I posted before.... but thats where Beatles appreciation begins and ends for me.

 

[Citanul]

Well music is subjective...and I dont believe one band can truly "change the face" alone, considering that music is bigger than just one band and is more of a group effort. One usually becomes "the face" much like Nirvana in the 90's there were many similar bands that helped to create a new genre but Nirvana is one of the ones credited as "the face".. some believe them being the face to be deserved... others not so much, so again, subjective... especially when you look at the fact that those also credited with changing "the face of rock" in the time of the Beatles such as Elvis had their own huge impact.

That's true - the Beatles didn't operate in isolation, and if they hadn't been around then maybe other bands would have been the ones to shape the course of rock music. But there's no denying that they had a big impact, and my point was that after 50 years of post-Beatles music it might not be that easy to appreciate just what sort of an impact they had due to not being as familiar with what music was like before them.

Why I see them as the first boy band is due to the fact that I seriously cant see girls/women "fainting" at their mere presence in reality not because of talent level. Seems more like a PR thing than an actual reality. I wasn't alive until the end of the 70's so all I have to go on is the footage I've seen of girls losing their minds and other media footage which I only ever take with a grain of salt in search of truth.

Were the Beatles devoid of talent? No, but given the decade, they had to have SOME level of talent to sell the image unlike today's bubble gum pop/rock autotune diva (regardless of gender) where there is a heavier value placed on "the look" than on ability. Musically they aren't my thing but that doesn't mean I put them on the same talent level as one of today's boy bands, I simply see them targeting the same style of audience that is why the comparison, nothing more.Doesn't mean the product then was of the same lousy quality as today. Id MUCH rather listen to endless hours of the Beatles than a single Justin Bieber song or whatever boy band thats out there today.

We might be getting into semantics here, but for me "boy band" implies a manufactured band chosen for their looks in an attempt to sell records, usually devoid of any artistic integrity. So for that reason I wouldn't classify the Beatles as a boy band.

Their level of popularity was definitely akin to that of a boy band, so I'd regard them more as the forerunners of the boy bands, especially since their popularity came about naturally. They just happened to have the right sound at the right time, and there wasn't a deliberate effort to pursue success of that nature. If there had been then they would have continued to churn out the same stuff rather than progress and write the more sophisticated songs which they did later in their career.

 

[Niels]

The Beatles had so many great songs!

It would be too hard for me to pick a favorite, but this will do for now.

 

[MehGuy]

I enjoy many of their songs, although many bands around that time period went on to create superior music. As far as influence goes, the Beatles are probably king. They helped ushered in more complex song structures.

Must have been exciting to grow up in the 60s, since the face of music changed so much.

 

[Niels]

A couple of my favorite solo works:

 

[Citanul]

I can't believe I forgot about this one (which is further proof that Led Zeppelin stole Stairway to Heaven as they only released their version after the Beatles broke up).

 

[( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

I want to retract what I said about their pre-hippy stuff being no good. I like all of it.

 

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[TuxAme]

That's one of the first songs I learned to play on guitar (Smoke on the Water was the first). Then I discovered I'm more of a bass person.